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A minnow isn’t a fish, in the eyes of the state of Minnesota, and as a result, Kim Douglass Barsness is off the hook.
At least that’s according to a ruling issued Tuesday by the Minnesota Court of Appeals.
The case involves Barsness, a Baudette resident, who was caught by a Department of Natural Resources conservation officer in May 2009 harvesting minnows in Upper Red Lake, according to the appellate decision.
Barsness had a permit to harvest minnows, but he was using equipment with orange DNR tags labeled “INF (infested) WTR (waters) ONLY,” the decision said.
The labels are part of a DNR effort designed to stop the spread of an invasive species called the spiny water flea. |
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Upper Red Lake is not infested with the spiny water flea, and the DNR said Barsness wasn’t supposed to use equipment labeled for infested waters in Upper Red Lake, according to the ruling.
Barsness, a bait dealer, was convicted of attempting to illegally sell wild animals — in this case, shiny minnows, according to the appellate court. He was fined and lost his commercial minnow license for three years, according to state records.
On appeal, Barsness argued that what he was doing wasn’t a crime. The appellate court agreed the state’s game and fish laws and administrative rules don’t specifically say that using infested-waters-only equipment to harvest minnows in noninfested waters is a crime.
The state argued that Barsness violated a general prohibition against netting fish except as specifically authorized and that using infested-waters-only equipment in violation of his permit was not authorized netting of fish. |
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